The young folk who began the show were great performers but I got the impression that there were technical issues with the sound . Well done to the performers for keeping going when the band and the singers couldn't really hear each other. So easy to criticise. I enjoyed the show . Good to see so many legends too all in the same show.
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Masarian28 June 2020
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Conceived as an occasion to mark the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's birth, Gregory Doran's production came across as a Bardic Royal Variety Performance, graced by the presence of Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall.
As with most of these occasions, the standard of each act varied wildly in terms of quality. Judi Dench appeared as Titania in a re- enactment of a scene from A MISDUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM, with Al Murray as a highly sympathetic Bottom; John Lithgow was extremely droll as Malvolio, mincing across the stage in his yellow stockings and cross-garters; while Ian McKellen held the audience spellbound with his rendition of an extract from SIR THOMAS MORE, calling for equal treatment of everyone, irrespective of race, gender, or class.
On the other hand Meera Syal and Senjeev Bhaskar were colorless as Beatrice and Benedick (which was surprising, in view of the fact that Syal had essayed the part successfully for the RSC in 2012); and the extracts from MACBETH and KING LEAR were so execrable that it might be more charitable not to mention the performers' names.
There was music from Berlioz's BEATRICE ET BENEDICT, and the English National Opera performing Verdi's FALSTAFF (proving beyond doubt that English is a most unmusical language for this kind of opera), and a rap version of Shakespeare. Ballet was represented in an extract from Prokofiev's ROMEO AND JULIET.
The comic turns were entertaining: the Horrible Histories company proved that there was plenty of mileage to be gained out of Shakespeare's texts, while Henry Goodman and Rufus Hound thoroughly enjoyed themselves with Cole Porter's specialty number "Brush up your Shakespeare." The comic highlight occurred when a clutch of performers came on stage to mispronounce the famous "To be, or not to be" speech from HAMLET, including Rory Kinnear, Benedict Cumberbatch, and McKellen, although Dench drew one of the biggest laughs of the evening when she referred to Hamlet as "the immortal Dame." Even Prince Charles came on stage for a cameo, to the audience's delight.
The evening came to a somewhat mawkish end when Helen Mirren and David Suchet delivered two famous speeches direct to the audience, to the accompaniment of music from the hard-working orchestra. This paved the way for a finale involving the whole company, thereby completing the variety-show feel of the evening.
While admiring the efforts of those involved to create an appropriate celebration, we could not help feeling that a little judicious editing might have rendered it more entertaining. -
This review is going to be very subjective, and in fact, if I can sum it up entirely, I'd say watch it by yourself and fast forward the bits you don't like. Because by catering for "everyone" it means there's bits you're not going to like.
One of the things that they tried to do with this "celebration" was to show the importance of Shakespeare by how it influenced other works. Personally, I think it failed. The very first thing we saw was a West Side Story song and dance number. I can see what they were going for I guess, but I think it lost the point. It was a celebration of Shakespeare, not Shakespeare's cover band. It'd be like going to see The Beatles and instead having some pub band playing songs that they wrote because they liked The Beatles. We wanted John Paul George and Ringo.
Well, in this case, we wanted Shakespeare. And that's the rub. Between the ballets and the operas and the songs (done with varying degrees of success) the overall runtime left, in my opinion, more filler and less Shakespeare. It left me wanting to see King Lear or Hamlet or heck, the Complete Works of Shakespeare Abridged.
There were some great performances. Sir Ian McKellen was the stand out performance giving a powerful speech about immigrants. Sanjeev Bhaskar and Meera Syal (from Goodness Gracious Me) nailed Much Ado About Nothing in a fantastic comedic / tragic scene. And the stage actor, Paapa Essiedu, played an amazing Hamlet for the famous To Be or Not To Be.
It's essentially Shakespeare at the Proms. And there are good bits. You'll just need to either put up with, or fast forward, the boring bits. -
fubared129 June 2018Most of the Shakespeare selections are pretty awful...Hamlet, R& J, A & C, Lear. Macbeth etc. Only McKellan and Dench and Lithgow come off well, and Dench is given the thankless role of Titania in love with Bottom when she would have beeb a great Lady M. The music is equally awful. They're Brits. Why couldn't they do Walton or even Barber's A & C, Why the folk and hip-hop dregs. Even the West Side Story selection is pretty badly performed. On the whole pretty weak.